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KickStarter The Banner Saga 2

oscar

Arcane
Joined
Aug 30, 2008
Messages
8,036
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NZ
About two hours in and I'm liking it quite a lot so far. Some cool C&C and nods to choices I made in the first game and the new classes are quite tactically interesting.
 

Metro

Arcane
Beg Auditor
Joined
Aug 27, 2009
Messages
27,792
BS1 was full points for artistic impression but middling for combat execution. Worth playing for music and art alone.
Indeed. The game's major selling point is its art and music. Hopefully the guys behind that get hooked up working on more games. The designers? Notsomuch.
 

Archibald

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
7,869
Personally I'm big fan of hp=dmg mechanic, but I know that its not very popular position which is probably evident with very few games trying to do something like that.
 

MicoSelva

backlog digger
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Personally I'm big fan of hp=dmg mechanic
Yeah, I like it too. Gameplay-wise, combat is still the highlight of the first game, despite lack of enemy variety and featureless battlefields. Unfortunately all the other parts (caravan magagement, C&C, event system) fail in one way or the other. I am not expecting this game to be much different in this regard, but I will be happy if proven wrong.

LoL @ DRM-free version being delayed/cancelled because of 'piracy'.
 
Self-Ejected

Bubbles

I'm forever blowing
Joined
Aug 7, 2013
Messages
7,817
Here's an illuminating interchange with a dev:

However... I'm a little sad that buying supplies is still completely useless. I didn't buy any from start to finish (on Normal) and didn't have any Will penalty until late game. At the same time, not buying supplies allowed for way more Promotions to my characters which vastly outclassed any benefits food could give me. Also, losing Clansman due to hunger and not training any new fighters didn't matter at all either; as all War battles seemed to have been nerfed to a single stage battle (which is kind of odd.. and way easier.)

On normal - that makes sense for supplies. We don't want to "punish" the average player. If you want a better experience where your caravan (and will) makes more of an impact - which can be both good and bad - try hard more. :)

It seems that BS2 is balanced like the first game - you either play on Hard or on Story Mode.
 

Archibald

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
7,869
I didn't follow closely all the previews, but weren't there supposed to be some additional stuff about caravans and food shortage..? Because reading that it gives the impression that nothing literally changed since in BS1 even on hard buying food was never a priority.
 

Infinitron

I post news
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I didn't follow closely all the previews, but weren't there supposed to be some additional stuff about caravans and food shortage..? Because reading that it gives the impression that nothing literally changed since in BS1 even on hard buying food was never a priority.

Not sure I remember anything like that, but they did add a systemic usage for Clansmen (basically gathering more Renown), giving you an incentive to keep them alive.
 
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orcinator

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
1,704
Location
Republic of Kongou
(basically gathering more Renown),

Started playing for a bit. They gather more supplies not renown, unless those scripted moments where you gain renown for doing something in text adventure mode are affected by your population.


Also I lost the rook/whatsrename's group's Skald shortly before I met the horsies, not sure if it's a glitch or if I did something that caused him to leave.
 
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Archibald

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
7,869
So you invest into supplies so that later you'd get more supplies for free..? Doesn't sound terribly interesting.
 

orcinator

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
1,704
Location
Republic of Kongou
Saw the skald comment on a landmark, guess it is a glitch.

Also god damn adobe air is fucking up my laptop.

update: a cutscene didn't show, cool
got it to work by turning off fullscreen mode
 
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Starwars

Arcane
Joined
Jan 31, 2007
Messages
2,829
Location
Sweden
I just finished up replaying Banner Saga 1 and then dove into this...

... and oh god, the tutorial messages? Is there any way I can turn that shit off? The "now click on this, now click on that" is wearing a bit thin especially as I... y'know, imported my fucking savegame and I'm now learning the exact same shit that the first game's tutorial taught me.
 

orcinator

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
1,704
Location
Republic of Kongou
I'm nearing the end of the game and it's becoming pretty obvious the devs got lazy and are just throwing identical compositions of dredge at me with the only difference being a different deployment zone and the occasional minor gimmick.


Looking at the much shorter unit list for the first game, I'm glad I skipped it.
 

Parabalus

Arcane
Joined
Mar 23, 2015
Messages
17,432
So I finished this and I'm quite impressed.

It's hard to gauge how much C&C there is without multiple playthroughs, but even if most of it was "fake" , the narrative was compelling enough for me to stick with my decisions and avoid branch-exploring through reloads.

I found the combat more challenging than BP1, played on hard and always chose only "Charge into them directly" options as possible - had several genuinely tough situations. New enemies add to the variety and there were very few standard warfare battles , which were perhaps a chore in the first one.

It's full of improvements upon it's predecessor and I'd heartily recommend it.
It's more of a "strategic adventure" than a RPG, you have less agency in story development than you usually do and everyone might not be able to swallow that, so as a potential buyer be wary.

I just finished up replaying Banner Saga 1 and then dove into this...

... and oh god, the tutorial messages? Is there any way I can turn that shit off? The "now click on this, now click on that" is wearing a bit thin especially as I... y'know, imported my fucking savegame and I'm now learning the exact same shit that the first game's tutorial taught me.

I lost my saves and replayed BP1 too, that tutorial message shit was too funny, especially since BP1 doesn't have any. You'd think they'd turn them off if you import a save. :M

Is it basically more of the same then?

Yes, apart from the mentioned tutorial messages the game continues almost seamlessly and improves along the way.
 
Self-Ejected

Bubbles

I'm forever blowing
Joined
Aug 7, 2013
Messages
7,817
BS2 is now in place 34 on the global Steam chart, between Undertale and March of the Living. I wonder if the devs expected that.

The peak player number are slightly better, with 1,924 vs. 1,829 for the first game. But keep in mind that BS1 was also released on GOG - as long as GOG accounted for at least 5% of BS1's sales, BS1 probably had more people playing at launch than the sequel.
 

Archibald

Arcane
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Aug 26, 2010
Messages
7,869
I'd guess that budget was lower for second part since it doesn't look like they made any drastic changes.
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
This game has a core team of four guys. Just adding a whole bunch of units and abilities is drastic enough I guess.
 
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---

Arcane
Joined
Dec 19, 2015
Messages
1,724
Location
Italy
Well, I've read that during the development of BS1 there were three guys in the team.
 

Starwars

Arcane
Joined
Jan 31, 2007
Messages
2,829
Location
Sweden
I just finished it.

The good:
-Art and audio are still top notch. I don't think the music was quite as good as in the first game but it's still superb.
-The writing is not great but it is better than in the first game.
-It's pretty cool to have a game with such a big number of characters. Obviously there's not a whole lot of depth to most characters but it's quite neat to see the characters you managed to get through the first game show up here as well and actually have things to say. Yrsa is a good example.
-I played with Rook as my main character and the game certainly felt like a "natural fit" for playing him. We'll see if the Alette path also feels that way.
-Bolverk feels a bit forced at times (especially the VA) but it was cool to have a character like that to play also. Found the switching of viewpoints to work really well in this one.
-The story itself certainly has its ups and downs but on the whole it's a lot of fun to follow. I actually can't wait to see what will happen in the final game.
-New classes and abilities feel like good improvements to the combat system, they're fun to use.

The bad:
-The whole caravan system is, as mentioned before, as pointless here as it was before from a gameplay standpoint. I *think* the size of your caravan has repercussions in the dialogues and stuff though. But ultimately, yeah... it feels quite pointless which is a shame considering the whole game revolves around it. The game world is such a harsh and depressing place, and the game obviously makes a point of punishing you in terms of story, but the gameplay is like the complete opposite of this. It makes for a really weird contrast. And even considering that, it's *extremely* easy to keep your caravan well-fed and happy in this game. Even moreso than the first one. Perhaps it's because I imported a BS1 save, I'm not sure. But it *never* felt like a struggle to manage it in this one.
-I enjoy the combat system in itself in these games, despite the weirdness of it sometimes being better to leave enemies alive and all that, I like that it feels pretty unique. But they did not do a good enough job on making it better in this game despite what was promised (much like the caravan system). There are some new enemies but there's still a huge amount of sameyness and you'll still be facing a lot of ye old BS1 type of Dredge, and a more boring enemy I can't really imagine. There are also victory conditions for some fights but they feel like gimmicks and not really fun gameplay.
-There are times where it feels pretty railroady. I mean, it's obviously a linear a game in terms of where you go but some choices end up being convinient "fakes" to get you where you need to go for the story. There are also some annoyances. Like, at one point I had just upgraded one of my party-members quite a lot (spent a lot of renown) only to have the character I was *supposedly* controlling kill that character off in the next conversation. Thanks game.
-The ending... yeah, the biggest fucking cliffhanger ever and very abrupt. You thought the BS1 ending sucked? Hoo boy...

I still really enjoy both of these games. I love the world, the premise of the story, the atmosphere of it and I find the story itself to be really fun to follow. It's a really bumpy ride but I love that the games feel pretty unique and I can't wait to see the finale of it.
 
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toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,024
I just finished it.

The good:
-Art and audio are still top notch. I don't think the music was quite as good as in the first game but it's still superb.
-The writing is not great but it is better than in the first game.
-It's pretty cool to have a game with such a big number of characters. Obviously there's not a whole lot of depth to most characters but it's quite neat to see the characters you managed to get through the first game show up here as well and actually have things to say. Yrsa is a good example.
-I played with Rook as my main character and the game certainly felt like a "natural fit" for playing him. We'll see if the Alette path also feels that way.
-Bolverk feels a bit forced at times (especially the VA) but it was cool to have a character like that to play also. Found the switching of viewpoints to work really well in this one.
-The story itself certainly has its ups and downs but on the whole it's a lot of fun to follow. I actually can't wait to see what will happen in the final game.
-New classes and abilities feel like good improvements to the combat system, they're fun to use.

The bad:
-The whole caravan system is, as mentioned before, as pointless here as it was before from a gameplay standpoint. I *think* the size of your caravan has repercussions in the dialogues and stuff though. But ultimately, yeah... it feels quite pointless which is a shame considering the whole game revolves around it. The game world is such a harsh and depressing place, and the game obviously makes a point of punishing you in terms of story, but the gameplay is like the complete opposite of this. It makes for a really weird contrast. And even considering that, it's *extremely* easy to keep your caravan well-fed and happy in this game. Even moreso than the first one. Perhaps it's because I imported a BS1 save, I'm not sure. But it *never* felt like a struggle to manage it in this one.
-I enjoy the combat system in itself in these games, despite the weirdness of it sometimes being better to leave enemies alive and all that, I like that it feels pretty unique. But they did not do a good enough job on making it better in this game despite what was promised (much like the caravan system). There are some new enemies but there's still a huge amount of sameyness and you'll still be facing a lot of ye old BS1 type of Dredge, and a more boring enemy I can't really imagine. There are also victory conditions for some fights but they feel like gimmicks and not really fun gameplay.
-There are times where it feels pretty railroady. I mean, it's obviously a linear a game in terms of where you go but some choices end up being convinient "fakes" to get you where you need to go for the story. There are also some annoyances. Like, at one point I had just upgraded one of my party-members quite a lot (spent a lot of renown) only to have the character I was *supposedly* controlling kill that character off in the next conversation. Thanks game.
-The ending... yeah, the biggest fucking cliffhanger ever and very abrupt. You thought the BS1 ending sucked? Hoo boy...

I still really enjoy both of these games. I love the world, the premise of the story, the atmosphere of it and I find the story itself to be really fun to follow. It's a really bumpy ride but I love that the games feel pretty unique and I can't wait to see the finale of it.

Thanks. Saved me some money.

The thing is, I liked the first one but they lost me with the Bellover shit. So, if this one is the same then fuck'em.
 
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Roqua

Prospernaut
Dumbfuck Repressed Homosexual In My Safe Space
Joined
Apr 28, 2004
Messages
4,130
Location
YES!
Does this one have a decent chardev system or is it still rpg-lite hipster shit for monkeys?
 

Brutan

Savant
Patron
Joined
Oct 9, 2014
Messages
127
Location
Romania
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I just finished it.

The game is great. The story is very interesting, better than the first. The are some breath taking moments in the game. Heck, there is even a brief moment of romance.

This time you also get to play as a varl ( some big horned strong dudes) and the clan expects you to put their interests first and not share the food with strangers, be slowed down by wounded peasants etc. It's a bit like King of the Dragon Pass.

Tldr: if you liked the first part you'll like this one even more. However, if the first one wasn't to your liking then most likely you won't enjoy the second part.

PS: I read here that some didn't like the ending. That wasn't the case for me. I liked the twist.
 

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